


light, on the precipice

by tamsinb



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, The Core Mechanics (Blaseball Team), come to the core mechanics we got wlw and robots, references to body modification, uhhhhh idk we got sapphics on these team i guess!, we have other things too but they're not in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29928495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamsinb/pseuds/tamsinb
Summary: A few scenes from the night before the Core Mechanics ascend.
Relationships: Lady Matsuyama/Bottles Suljak
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	light, on the precipice

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, we have a new team so let's do a rundown of the lore I'm using so far!
> 
> Lady Matsuyama is an 8ft tall trans woman, partially cybernetic.  
> Bottles Suljak is a grease monkey and sometimes glassblower. They and Lady are in love.  
> Jasper Ji-eun is a courier in the core and is hard of hearing.  
> Gia Holbrook is a sentient AI who likes to hop between different bodies/chassis.  
> Jolene Willowtree is a he/him lesbian solarpunk gardener.
> 
> Who knows how long any of these interps will survive. That's the fun of it!

* * *

Homes weren’t houses in the Core. Homes were things you hollowed out, converted, scraped together out of scrap placed in the aperture of a pipe you were  _ fairly _ sure wasn’t in use, or a discarded shipping container. Or, in the case of the rounded wall Lady Matsuyama was resting against, the hollowed out and burnished bronze of some old boiler. With their height, leaning against the sides of the dome meant hunching over slightly to fit against its curve but sitting down risked putting seams in the perfectly maintained fabric of her dress, so her current posture was the only option.

Bottles’ blowtorch wasn’t the only light in the room but it may as well have been, bright enough to make all others useless. Lady watched it escape and glint off of the hatched windows in the roof, where she and they would take their meals sometimes, letting the percussive ambiance and scattered pockets of light and activity through the Core play the backdrop to their casual time spent together.

A backdrop they would be able to enjoy for precious little remaining time.

Lady clicked her long pointed metalwork fingers against the wall behind her and remembered the way they’d felt when Bottles had installed them. A perfect fit, like they’d always been there. “Do you think anyone’s ever done it before?” she asked to Bottles’ back. They didn’t turn away from their work, combining and recombining glass rods over the flame, but their shoulders gained that arch how they did when they were thinking so Lady knew they’d heard.

“Aren’t we s’posed to be the first?” barked Bottles over their shoulder, goggles flashing darkly with the firelight. “Never seen anybody else do it.”

“Yes, but.” Lady pulled at the collar of her dress. “Blaseball’s been around along time, you know. It comes and goes. Waves, sort of thing.”

Bottles didn’t answer for a moment, their breath occupied by flowing through the brighthot glass. When it was free: “Take it on faith, then?”

Lady smirked. “I’m not naive, Suljak, that’s your job.”

And that got them to turn around, swiveling in their perch and flipping up their goggles so she could see how much their eyes were grinning as they feigned offense. “You  _ wound _ me, you really do, to say that I’m naive? I’ll have you know-”

“Bottles. Your glass is dripping.”

“Huh? AH- Aw beans!!” Lady laughed as they swiveled back around with a muttered  _ nothing I can’t fix _ . She was overcome, as she was sometimes, by the boundless depth of her love for them.

And they’d made it this far, hadn’t they? Through elections and loss and competition and who could forget the time a giant radish god had trapped people in hardpacked earth for seasons upon seasons and-

Well, if they’d made it through all that, then what was a small journey to someplace called Up?

If they’d made it through all that together-

But how could Lady be sure? If the opposite of naive was cynical then she supposed she’d have to be that, and even if no one could say for sure this had or happened before why not assume the worse, why not assume it meant they’d be separated because as Lady looked at Bottles Suljak’s silhouette against the flame, so stolid through all the seasons, so much the pleasing complement to their own form, their own person, how could she not believe the worst would be separation?

“Hey. Lady.”

And she looked down and Bottles was extending a dark tapered piece of metal to her, and resting on its end was a glassblown ring, stripes of color zigzagging through, knotting and fighting for precedence, a frenzied moment captured calmly forever.

Lady reached for it unthinking and Bottles yanked it back. “Hey! It’s still hot!”

“Is this…”

“For you, yeah of course! Wanted to get it done before we, you know.”

“Go up or climb.”

“Or ascend!” laughed Bottles. “Just somethin to say, ya know. Long as you got it we’re never apart. You and me to the end.”

Lady blinked. “You mean.”

Bottles’ exuberance was twenty times stronger than the flame they’d just put out. “I mean  _ mostly _ I just want the excuse to call you my wife all the time. Figured you wouldn’t mind.”

“I’d. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t. For even a single sentence.”

“Well, then, my sweet darling wife! Anything you wanna do before we gotta head out?”

“Just about the only thing I want is for you to dramatically and romantically jump into my arms while I swing you around.”

“Babe, I’m kinda way covered in exhaust and stuff right now, are you sure? That’s like your favorite dress-”

“If you think for a single instant that I’d care about my clothes to not accept a hug from you?” Lady eased the hat back from her head to make sure Bottles saw the extent of the devotion in her face. “Then I’d start to wonder just how well you knew your wife in the first place.”

And just like that Bottles was in her arms, and they were embracing, near spilling out the door of their home, and Lady figured somehow they’d be fine, they were from the Core after all and they were used to making do. They’d find a home up there because they knew how to scrounge and scrap and forge a home, because in the Core homes were something you constructed piecemeal from whatever you found around you that you loved.

Well. Maybe it was that way everywhere, too.

*******

Jasper Ji-eun flew through the cold underground air. There was a special exhilaration to traversing the Core this way, gravity’s pull converted to forward thrust by the metal hooks extending out and around xer arms, welded back into the shock-absorbing casing on the small of their back, forward thrust turned to soaring by a swift pull upwards from the hardlight limbs hovering above their shoulders - a common model, for people who needed to sign while working with their first pair of hands, but Ji-eun had figured out how to rig xers so the hands were solid on the crags and bars of the Core’s geometry and so upwards they flew and upwards they climbed, until they alighted on the rigid metalwork of a balcony railing and hoisted themself up to perch atop.

The balcony was suffused with light, not unheard of down here but definitely purposeful - when the Core saw fit to bring forth light it was always flickering, unsteady, transient. Light that was focused, steady? That was light someone had constructed. In this case, that someone was Gia Holbrook. The figure of one of her many chassis lay supine across a hacked-together deck chair and from its pose Ji-eun could tell it was meant to be enjoying the light’s rays. They glanced at the thin stickerstrip of wiring across the body’s alloy head. Lit up pale blue, Gia’s signature gear designs inside whirring. She was in there.

Ji-eun rapped a few times on the bars, the sound of knuckle against metal from their hands and metal against metal from xer propulsion prosthetics snapping Gia up and to attention.

“Jasper!” chirped the excitable AI - no, NHP, Ji-eun corrected themself, she preferred Non-Human Person. Didn’t look like she’d bothered to put a moving mouth into this chassis, the words emanated from a small speaker on the side of the jaw. Which meant xe couldn’t lipread, but they were in secluded enough space that it wasn’t really an issue.

<Delivery for you,> signed Ji-eun with the hands behind their back. Xer other hands were busy clutching onto the rail.

“Oh yay!! You’re just in time too I was just thinking to myself jeez I hope Jasper gets here soon with the parts I need and now you’re here and-” Ji-eun held their hand up, stopping Gia’s flurry of words. Didn’t much like doing it but they knew if they didn’t the sentence might never end.

<Right on time. As always.>

“Just toss ‘em on the lil guy over there I’ll take ‘em in in a sec!” said Gia. Ji-eun nodded and loosed the parcel from around their side, tossing it into the miniature truck-like vessel by the door back into Gia’s place.

Xe didn’t have any other appointments to keep so they figured they could stand to hang out for a bit. <What’re you doing, sunbathing?>

“Hmmmm. Can I call it sunbathing if it’s not in the sun?”

<Probably.>

“Then yeah! I’m sunbathing!”

<It’s not gonna do much for you, you know.>

“Oh I know, I can  _ never _ get a tan. I think I need new sunscreen.”

<I mean because your skin’s metal, Gia.>

“Oh yeah, right!” Gia laughed at her joke, and Ji-eun smiled too.

<How do you like it?>

“The sunbathing? It’s okay. I think I like, halfway get it.”

< _ Get _ it?>

“What it’s  _ about _ .”

<Right. Anyway. I’ve got some things to take care of.>

“Before we leave?”

<Right. Things to set in order.>

“Sounds glamorous.”

Ji-eun shrugged. <Not really.> With that, xe let her balance shift backwards, falling off the edge of the rail, hurtling back into the everpresent semidarkness of the Core sky.

*******

“Drama queen,” muttered Gia, back on the balcony. She’d be smiling if she’d felt like giving this chassis a moving mouth, but she’d made this body in a fit of inspiration and a lot of corners had been cut. It couldn’t really even move. But it could feel heat from the light and it could squint its eyes and when she was in it she could settle back into the chair and-

And she almost got it. She was close, she felt it, she just hadn’t unlocked whatever that spark was that bridged the gap between feeling and intuition. And more and more she was starting to figure she wouldn’t find it out here. Oh well.

The gears on the side of the head of the sunbathing chassis slowed and stopped and the gears in a small panel on the front of the small rover began whirring in turn as Gia hopped in. She liked having the small uniting element between all of her chassis and the motif of two spinning gears matched the team’s aesthetics so she’d been sticking to that for a while now. The cameras on the rover were low to the ground and the rapid shift in perspective was dizzying, like vertigo, and Gia couldn’t get enough of it. It was why when people with human bodies talked about a rush of adrenaline she  _ got _ what they were talking about because it was the same. She whirred her bulky rubber wheels and bumped over the threshold into her house, the package on her back/cargobed threatening to spill over the side.

She wheeled around the house for a bit trying to remember where she’d left her house-chassis before she found it left in stasis, deactivated across the couch. She hopped up and swung that body’s feet over the cushions, popping up to grab the parts Jasper’d delivered from on top of the form she’d just left.

She carried the package down the hall to her workshop and luxuriated as she rolled her shoulders and neck in the comfort of this chassis. She liked this one, like a home and a self wrapped into one, the same feeling she imagined was being described when others talked about a perfectly worn-in pair of shoes except deeper, all over, down to the core. Plus this one had hair, soft fibres she’d frayed from whatever canvas and cloth she could find of that particular deep brown color, and no one had ever disagreed that it was a look and a half.

Jolene Willowtree was browsing along the back wall, his plants flourishing under the hydroponics focused on them. He didn’t notice as Gia stepped in, caught up in his work, nor did he notice when she clattered the parts all across the table, metal plates and springs and circuit boards skittering to a halt against other pieces as Gia slid the new chassis she was working on against them and got to work. And, as usual, as soon as she was just about to get really focused-

“Hey. Parts get here?”

There was Jolene behind her, peeking over her shoulder. She nodded. “Jasper just brought them!”

“Do you think you’ll be able to get it done in time?”

As direct as ever. “Do I have a choice?”

“Why not just take your game body with you? We should still be playing Up there.”

Gia shook her head. “I can’t be in that body all the time. It’s fine for games but when I’m just kicking it? Ew. It feels like having a wrinkle in your sock.”

“Well you don’t want that.”

“So this one’s gotta be all-purpose.”

“Gia you’ve never stuck in one body for more than thirty minutes as long as I’ve known you.”

“Well, this is different! This is a big change, I’ve gotta be prepared for anything, and I need a body to match.”

“If you say so.”

Gia broke eye contact. “How are your plants?”

“They’ll live,” sighed Jolene, “for a little while at least. Set the lamps on a backup generator and I called in a favor from a friend to check on them every month but that guy’s  _ way _ flaky so. Who knows, really.”

Gia turned away from her project to lean against the table. Jolene’s pet projects, twelve by six pots on slats in the wall, most with small plants green or otherwise doing their best to grow out of the nutrient-heavy soil. Gia didn’t know what most of them were, Jolene could be a bit reclusive about his projects, but she knew most of them were some kind of splice or similar, trying to build resilience or other desirable plant things. Some of them were just herbs, and Gia liked those best, mostly because they smelled nice. In Gia’s estimation smell was the best sense humans had come up with, they really knocked it out of the park when they figured out noses.

“What do you think it feels like?” asked Gia, after a moment.

“What feels like?”

“Being a plant, under the light like that. Using the light for energy, moving it around through you, feeling it build more of you-”

“Gia. Are you asking what it feels like to grow?”

“Oh. Huh. I guess I am.” Gia thought on it for a moment. “I know what it’s like to be in different bodies but none of them really change that way.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Don’t think so. Just curious, you know?”

“Right.”

And Gia didn’t have to breathe but they liked the feeling of it filling some space inside her and she liked the sound it made when she exhaled hard. It was the second she was doing now.

“Hey. Jolene.”

“Yeah?”

“Jolene.”

“What.”

“Jolene, Jo-leeeeeeeeeeeene.”

“Are you kidding me.”

Gia giggled. “Sorry sorry, you know I can’t ever help it.”

“Thought I got enough of that from the fans.”

“Anyway! I had an idea, do you mind if I grab one of your lamps for a second? Like, will it ruin everything?”

“Uh, don’t think so? Why.”

“Just wanna try something.”

*******

It was a bit of a rush job, admittedly, but Gia was good at those. When she hopped into the lamp there wasn’t any sight or sound or movement but not in the same claustrophobic way as losing those faculties in a body accustomed to them. It was hard to feel that lack in a chassis that had never asked for them, never needed them, and Gia flipped herself on and felt the lightbulb of the hastily converted hydroponics lamp start sending its modified sunlight and-

And she couldn’t see them down there, the plants she was feeding, couldn’t see them turning receptive to the light, but something about being the thing producing it gave her the certainty that it was being received, a deepdown core knowledge that whatever she radiated was being gathered, incorporated, sent through flowing networks and combining and recombining, and she had no sense of time in there so she shone and shone and turned electricity into light by chemical means, and she knew what it would become was green.

And instead of crafting the perfect body she’d meant to, this was how Gia Holbrook spent the majority of the final night before the Core Mechanics ascended.

After several hours she popped back into her waiting body. Jasper was asleep on the couch.

She smiled to herself.  _ So that’s what growing feels like. I get it now! _


End file.
